


you only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves

by comosum



Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Alternate Universe - No Pennywise (IT), College, M/M, Original Character(s), San Francisco, post-Derry, richie and eddie go to san fransisco state together but get this, they're still repressed
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-16
Updated: 2021-03-05
Packaged: 2021-03-11 01:33:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 15,715
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28116990
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/comosum/pseuds/comosum
Summary: “Please don't laugh," Richie took a deep breath. "I’m a librarian’s assistant.”“Holy shit,” Eddie had said. “This is the best day of my life.”--Richie gets a new job, makes new friends, and realises that being gay? It can be good, actually.
Relationships: Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier
Comments: 19
Kudos: 46





	1. Chapter One

**Author's Note:**

> hey everyone! i'm putting out the first chapter of this, to get a feel if ppl would be interested in more!! u can kind of tell in this first bit but it's exploring a lot of internalised homophobia and will get heavier and more exploratory with that in later chapters, so if that's not ur thing - click away! 
> 
> title from wild geese by mary oliver.

_ There is something to be said _ , Richie thinks wryly, pulling himself across campus in the fresh daylight,  _ about waking up early.  _ If it was his choice, he wouldn’t be hauling ass at eight am on a Saturday, but his new boss is the kind of optimistic fucker that thinks it would be best if he “ _ dived in at the deep end!” _ like he’s one of those walruses that wander too close to the cliff’s edge on National Geographic. 

That is to say, the sun has not yet been up for more than forty-five minutes and he is already hurtling headlong into his own probable demise.

He checks his watch: five minutes until he has to clock in. He checks his Google maps, sees there is still seven minutes left of the pocketsized highway to hell, and speeds the fuck up. 

If anyone who had ever met Richie Tozier was asked to draw a venn diagram of  _ Things Richie Tozier Is Good At  _ and  _ Typical Student Jobs _ , the middle would probably comprise of bartending, Whole Foods cashier, and budget birthday party magician. 

At the furthest point of the _Typical Student Jobs_ circle, on an icey, isolated, walrus covered cliff, would be Library Assistant. But here he was, making his way across the San Francisco State campus at an ungodly hour, and he did not have balloon animals in his pocket.

When he had found out that his campus had a system already in place to find jobs for students, Richie thought it was his lucky fucking day. There is no one on earth who enjoys job hunting, except maybe a special brand of corporate sadists. But, as Richie was a sleep-deprived and maladjusted college student, and not someone who got off on wearing cheap business wear and sitting on the side of a desk that implied he was the stupidest in the room, he was grateful to skip the painful experience. All he’d had to do instead was fill in a couple tick boxes and sign his name on a dotted line and off he was. Waiting for the moneytree to ring him up and send him stacks of cash.

It had only been a couple days since he filled out the form when he’d gotten the call, and he’d scrambled to the corner of his and Eddie’s dorm room, plugging his left ear with his finger so as to hear the other end over Eddie’s confused yapping.

The call had involved a lot of him walking the short path from nightstand to doorway and back again, and humming affirmatively whenever there was a gap in the conversation. Yes, he was available most mornings as he’d said in the form. Yes, he was available to start as soon as possible. Yes, he was really looking forward to meeting everyone and getting started. 

“Fuck,” he’d said, as soon as he’d hung up. “Fuck, shit, and also fuck.”

Eddie, who had turned back to his Bio Psych homework as soon as Richie had started pacing incessantly, only looked up to say: “What the fuck is wrong with you now?”

“That was my new boss,” Richie had said, looking at the phone in his hand. 

“Yeah, I could tell.”

“What?” Richie paused in his pacing. “How?”

“You were doing your polite voice,” Eddie had been grappling about for a ruler that he’d dropped under the table at this point.

“I have a polite voice?”

“Everyone has a polite voice, Rich. Yours sounds like you're being mugged but you're apologising for it _ , _ ” at this point he had grabbed the ruler and was hauling himself back to a seating position. “What’s the job?”

“I’m a -- oh my fuck, I can’t believe this is real. Please don’t laugh.”

“When have I ever laughed at you in my life?” Eddie had muttered. “You’re not funny.”

“I’m a librarian’s assistant.”

Eddie had spun so fast in his chair that Richie had vaguely wondered if it would take off, before meeting Richie’s eyes. He had been beaming like the cat who got the cream. 

“Holy shit,” he’d said. “This is the best day of my life.”

“I’m so glad that my suffering provides entertainment for you,” Richie had replied flatly. 

“It does, Richie,” came the grinning response. “It does. Oh my god, if Miss Gretchen could see you now.”

“Yeah, I’m sure Miss Gretchen is rolling in her grave at the news that one of her old middle school students is working at a library,” he deadpanned.

Eddie had reached out from his desk at a precarious angle to smack him.

“Don’t disrespect the dead, Rich. Not cool.”

***

So here he is. Taking the journey towards his own oblivion, and not even his best friend has his back. 

Of course, that’s to be expected. He and Eddie  _ were  _ best friends, of course. They’d followed each other from Derry to San Francisco as soon as they were out of high school -- each one insisting that they were the one doing the leading. But, for the most part, their relationship was built on a layer of making fun of each other and relentless comments that often drove both of them up the wall. Eddie would take the piss out of him for not studying but then copy his homework, and Richie would take the piss out of him for making a rota but would never fail to do his chores on time. 

All that is to say, it is no wonder that Eddie thinks it’s fucking hilarious that his new job will likely involve shushing people and stacking books. It is certainly a bizarre kind of karma for being on the offending end of innumerous glares from teachers his entire life. And, of course, if it makes Eddie laugh, Richie will be sure to hold this job down for as long as he finds it possible.

***

“So, you're saying you don’t know any of the Dewey Decimal system? None at all?”

Richie pushes his glasses up his nose and shrugs sheepishly at his supervisor. They’re in a little office room in the back of the library. The only furniture apart from the little desk they’re crammed around and the little chairs they’re perched on, are crates upon crates of books that for some reason aren’t available to check out. Richie wonders absently if SFSU is part of an underground network of banned books. He hopes they have  _ Carrie. _

“No, man. I’m sorry. Is that gonna be an issue?” And then adds: “Uh, sir?”

Joey, as his name tag reads, snorts slightly. 

“You don’t have to call me ‘sir’, dude. I’m like two years older than you. I’m just wondering how you got this job when you don’t seem to have any of the qualifications we asked for on the ad.”

Joey has pink-wired glasses, a corduroy shirt and a thick moustache that makes him look like he would fit in well with Werewolf-themed gay porn. Richie thinks he looks like if the city of San Francisco took coke and then shat out the living representation of a nicotine addiction.

“I didn’t apply for it, man. Like I said, I signed up for the job allocation thing.”

Joey picks up one of the forms in front of them and studies it a little closer. He blows a quick blast of air through his teeth in exasperation.

“Right,” he says. “God, that thing fucks us in the ass every year. No offense.”

“None taken.” There’s a beat of silence. “So, do I still have a job, or-”

“No, no, yeah you do. Sorry, dude. It’s cool, I’ll just have to spend a longer time training you than I expected.” 

“Which you’re totally fine with?”

Joey gets up and beckons him out of the office room and towards the main section of the library. 

“Which I’m totally fine with,” he confirms, over his shoulder. And then, as an aside: “At least I don’t have to spend all this time with a straight dude or anything. The last guy I trained would  _ not  _ shut up about football. But I can tell you’re chill.”

Richie looks down himself frantically before following Joey out of the room. 

“You can tell I’m not straight… just from this?”

Joey looks at him weirdly. 

“You’re wearing a Stevie Nicks t-shirt, dude.”

***

Richie gets back into his and Eddie’s dorm room later that evening, tired from a long day of memorising numbers and the locations of various topics among the stacks. It had been a bit of a shock to the system when he realised just how many niche little subject areas he would have to memorise, but he guesses that it was just his fault for having barely set foot in the library thus far on his college journey, and he tells Eddie as much when he collapses on his shitty little twin bed, arm over his eyes like a swooning regency maiden. 

“ _ College journey, _ ” Eddie says, with audible air quotes. “God, you’re so pretentious. Just say  _ this semester  _ like a normal fucking person.” 

“There’s a joke there somewhere,” Richie mumbles into his arm, and he starts to workshop it in his head.  _ Normal person, fucking... _

“But you had a good time then? They’re having you back?” Eddie asks, ignoring him. 

“Yeah,”  _ Normal people have sex, normal people fuck? Normal people aren’t virgins.  _ “I start properly next week.”

“That’s great, Richie!” 

“Yeah?” Richie sits up bewildered. And then he adds: “I can’t say  _ this semester  _ because I’m not a normal fucking-person, because the only person I’ve fucked is your mom and she is a  _ very _ abnormal lover.”

Eddie stares at him. A beat passes.

“Is that the best you could do with that?”

“I’m tired,” Richie responds, falling back onto his bed. 

“It took you like two minutes to think of that, and it was shit.”

“Yeah, it could use some more workshopping.”

Eddie rolls his eyes. “There is no saving it. It’s unfunny down to the concept, asshole. You could  _ never  _ land my mother.”

“I mean yeah, she landed me. She went all out when she seduced me, rose petals on her bed and everything. Which is saying something for how much she wanted this dick, because I’m pretty sure you’ve told me that your pollen allergy is genetic.” 

“It is, I have told you that.” A beat. “Also, fuck you.”

“Also, how can  _ you  _ call  _ me  _ pretentious? You eat grapefruit!”

“How is eating grapefruit pretentious?” Eddie asks, incredulous. “Why are you even hooked on that? You need to sleep, dude. I think your brain is lagging.”

“Your  _ dick  _ is lagging,” he mumbles, turning over into the mattress.

“Real mature, Rich.”

***

Sometimes Richie finds it easier to believe something if he repeats it to himself, like he’s a small child that needs to be reassured about the world.

Living with Eddie had been a good idea, Richie tells himself. Living with Eddie was sensible and financially smart and better than getting randomly assigned a roommate who sniffed glue and kept odd hours and refused to wear anything that wasn’t a specific shade of beige (Stan had been very precise in his phone calls). 

It was actually very clever and adult of Richie to live with Eddie, and he was definitely not ruining his own life by living with the only person who had routinely triggered him to have hot flushes since he was twelve years old. 

It wasn’t like it was something he could talk about with the others, either. It wasn’t like there was a point in high school where Richie decided he was going to ask Mike if any of their male friends also made  _ him  _ feel like he was suddenly going through the menopause whenever he got a slight glimpse of skin above their knee. 

There was a word for getting hot under the collar when you looked at other boys, Richie knew that. But he wasn’t sure he was ready to look it in the face just yet.

Just like how he wasn’t always able to look Eddie in the face. 

Eddie’s least favourite thing about their building had to be the showers. Richie knows this because it has been Eddie’s preferred rant topic for about two weeks now, and it has become part of Richie’s routine. Eddie likes to shower around the same time everyday, so each morning while he leaves, with his caddy in one hand and his towel in another, Richie closes his eyes for a blissful fifteen minutes and braces himself.

“God! It’s fucking disgusting is what it is!” Eddie swings open the door, already red in the face, towel around his middle.

Yes, the worst part of the shower routine is that Eddie refuses to wear a robe straight out of a shower because he insists it's bad for his pores. 

“- are you listening? Rich, I said Jackson from down the hall refuses to wear shower shoes. I have to start every day looking at his rancid feet, yet he still thinks we’re friends.”

Richie reaches for his glasses and looks up blearily at a shirtless Eddie. First hot flush of the day: check. He coughs to cover it up.

“How do you know he thinks you’re friends?”

“He calls me bro!”

“He’s just a fratty weirdo, dude. I’m pretty sure he calls his professors bro.”

“God,” he pauses, putting his hands on his hips. “What a little freak.”

“You’re  _ my  _ little freak,” Richie mumbles as he stretches.

“Shut  _ up _ , dude.” Eddie says, but Richie catches him grinning as he looks away.

With his back turned, Richie takes a moment to catalogue the breadth of his shoulders, the sprinkling of freckles there. The twist of his arms as he tugs on a t-shirt. The way the morning light falls through the window and settles on his hair. 

“You got a shift today?” Eddie asks, breaking the silence. 

Richie shifts to face the wall, anticipating Eddie turning towards him. He let himself look, but now he has to turn away before the shame sets in. He’s allowed to look, right? It’s not as if he’ll ever know. 

“Yeah, this afternoon until late.”

***

Richie thinks that his new favourite place in the world is behind the front desk of the library. He knows that this is probably against the majority of preconceptions people have about him, but he isn’t unfamiliar with defying expectations. 

Joey had told him in his training that it was okay for him to do college work while he was on shift, and the front desk was the perfect place to do it.

From this position, he’s able to listen to the perfect white noise -- he can just about hear the regular bustle of the library, but he’s far away enough from other students that he doesn’t get distracted by what people are saying. 

Plus, the fact that he’s still on the clock, and occasionally has to stop what he’s working on to check someone’s book in or out, means that he has just enough things to do at the same time to keep himself focused.

Really, he’s just glad that he’s enjoying this job. Eddie was right to laugh of course, on paper it was the worst possible fit for him. And, yeah, he guesses it  _ is _ funny, when he looks at it from an outsider’s perspective, the idea of him sitting still and telling people to be quiet for hours on end. But, sometimes Richie just likes knowing that he can be good at things, if he tries. He can be good.

In fact, the only downside (so far, at least) is that Joey seems to have realised that Richie is so far in the closet that he’s getting frostbite, and has taken him under his wing, like a strange older gay duckling. Mostly this has manifested in Joey sitting on the front desk (which the Big Boss, whom Richie is yet to meet, definitely has rules against) and pointing out random guys leaning over textbooks for Richie to rate on his bizarrely specific hot or not scale.

“What about that guy?” Joey is pointing to a muscled dude reaching for a book at the top of one of the stacks. “Want to take him home to meet your parents? Argue about who’s family thanksgiving to go to?”

“No, dude,” Richie scoffs, directing his gaze pointedly to the notes he’s been making. 

“What is he, like a student athlete? He looks like he’d be into Playboy bunnies or some shit.”

“What, and a guy can't put on a pair of bunny ears and get fucked like a girl?”

“Dude,” Richie says, going red. “I said to chill it with the sex talk, Jesus Christ.”

“Sorry,” Joey replies, not sounding sorry at all. “I forgot that you’re a blushing virgin waiting for her wedding night.” He turns towards Richie. “Aw, you’re  _ actually  _ blushing? Cute, you’d look good in white.”

“ _ Dude, _ ” Richie repeats, frozen.

“Sorry,” Joey repeats. “But you’re going to have to tell me what your type is at  _ some  _ point, or I’ll never be able to set you up with anyone.”

“I’ve  _ told  _ you _ , _ ” Richie says, frustrated. “I’m not in college to like, fuck around or whatever. I just want to get a degree and get out.”

Joey turns to him, surprised. “You don’t want to stay in San Francisco after you graduate?”

“I don’t know,” he shifts, uncomfortable. “I haven’t really thought about it.”

Joey watches him carefully. “You know, you don’t have to rush off anywhere. You’re okay to settle here, if you want to. You can let yourself get comfortable.” He lets that settle between them for a second. 

There’s a lump in Richie’s throat suddenly, and he can’t speak. He swallows around it.

“You know what I mean?” Joey prompts.

“Yeah. I know.” Richie says, stilted. “Can you drop it? Please?”

“Sure, dude.” He leans over to see what Richie’s writing. “Oh shit, is that Intro to Philosophy?”

***

It’s late when Richie gets back to their dorm, and Eddie is half asleep with the lights on. 

“Eddie?” Richie whispers, as he pulls his jacket off. “Are you awake?”

Eddie hums, shifting in his blankets to blink blearily at Richie. “Kinda,” he says, through a yawn. “I left the light on so that you wouldn’t trip over your feet when you got back.”

“Oh,” Richie says, chest tightening. “Thanks, buddy.”

“No problem,” Eddie murmurs, turning back over to go to sleep. “Night, Rich.”

“Night.” Richie turns the lights off. 

***

Weeks go by, and Richie is sitting across from Eddie in the coffee shop across from their place. They’re both leaning over assignments, surrounded by cooling mugs. Between his lattes and Eddie’s americanos, Richie is surprised they haven’t overdosed on caffeine yet.

He’s certain he can feel a crash coming on, and is ready to collapse over his Econ homework when Eddie looks up.

“So, how  _ is  _ the library, then?”

Richie flounders for a second, trying to think of how to describe the library to Eddie.

“I don’t know,” he settles on. “It’s just work, isn’t it? I clock in. Look at some books. Clock out. Get paid.”

Eddie frowns, and a line appears between his eyebrows. Richie wants to smooth it out with his thumb. He feels insane. 

Eddie, still frowning, says: “Jesus Christ, try to be  _ more  _ boring, could you?” 

Richie barks out a surprised laugh. “Well,  _ sorry!  _ Why do you even want to know? It’s really not that interesting.”

“Just like,” Eddie frowns again, frustrated. “Is it hard work? Do you enjoy it? What are your co-workers like? I don’t know! Normal shit!”

At the mention of co-workers, Richie scratches the back of his neck nervously. He thinks about Joey, about how the last time he saw him, he was wearing dungarees and asking Richie whether he’d ever rim someone on the first date, or if he was more of a wine and dine kind of a guy. Somehow, just  _ describing  _ him to Eddie, marrying these two entirely separate people in his life, seems completely impossible.

Eddie catches the movement, and crosses his arms. “Okay,” he says. “What the fuck, what are you being so cagey for?”

“I’m not being cagey!” He replies, instinctively raising his hands. He lowers them after realising that waving his arms about like a flighty animal does indeed make him look cagey. “I just don’t want to talk about work, man. It’s boring, I’d rather talk about something interesting. How has your day been?”

“How has  _ my day been? _ ” Eddie replies incredulously. “We’ve spent the entire day together! You know how it’s been!”

“Well,” Richie treads water. “How was yesterday?”

“Yesterday was fine, I had two lectures and then I worked on my presentation for Sociology,” Eddie indulges him softly. “But seriously, dude. Stop deflecting. I want to hear about your work, why don’t you want to tell me? I won’t find it boring, I swear!”

Richie blinks at Eddie, trying to think of something to offer. Eddie clearly takes that to be an answer of itself, and leans in closer. 

“Wait,” he says. “Are you okay at work? Like, did something happen?”

Richie stares at him, bemused. “Eddie, what the fuck would happen to me at a library in San Francisco?”

“I don’t know!” Eddie exclaims. “But you’ve been talking less since you started and… I don’t know. You do have a bad habit of taking too much on. I just wanted to check in. Make sure it’s not stressing you out too much.”

“I’m fine, dude,” he deflects, again. He thinks back to high school, though, and how he took five AP classes while tutoring Eddie and Ben on the side. “For real,” he adds. “I do assignments while I’m working, Joey lets me.”

“Joey?” Eddie asks. 

  
Shit.

“Yeah,” Richie reaches for his latte in a manner he hopes appears casual. It definitely isn’t, he realises half way through the gesture, but he’s committed now so he follows it through. “He’s my supervisor.”

“So you  _ do  _ have co-workers!” Eddie says, clearly going for triumphant but falling flat. He ducks his head, going back to his work. Richie furrows his brow, but does the same.

For a few minutes they’re both writing in silence, but then Eddie frowns again and, without looking up, quietly says, “Just, if you don’t want to talk about it with me, that’s fine. I can take a hint. But talk to Stan or Bev. Please? I know you won’t tell anyone unless you’re asked directly. So this is me asking you.”

Richie swallows. “Yeah, okay Eds,” he says. “I can do that.”

***   
  


Two days later, Richie is standing outside the library on his smoke break when he decides to make good on his promise to Eddie.

As he pushes coins into the payphone, he grins wryly to himself. Calling Stan from a payphone in a time of crisis feels like a decidedly summer camp activity, like Stan’s his father and he’s a poor homesick kid. He briefly considers answering the phone with a coy “Hello Daddy,” but decides he’s not quite ready for opening himself up to the kind of comments that might accompany that decision. 

The call first goes to Stan’s RA, but after a few minutes Richie’s greeted by a punctual “Stanley Uris speaking,” and it feels like the world’s turned upright again. 

“Hi Stan,” Richie says after taking a sharp drag. 

“Oh,” he responds, with a poorly disguised tone of surprise. “Hi Richie!”

Richie barks a laugh. “Don’t get too overjoyed,” he says. “Were you expecting someone else?”

“No!” Stan interjects. “No, don’t worry. Richie! How are you?”

“I’m good! How are you, Staniel?”

“Rich,” Stan’s flat mouth visible over the line, “I’m asking  _ you  _ how  _ you  _ are.”

Richie takes another drag. “You’ve spoken to Eddie,” he says. 

“More like Eddie called me and asked if you’d said anything quote unquote  _ worrying  _ to me, and when I told him you hadn’t called in two weeks he said ‘fuck’ three times fast and hung up.”

“Has it been two weeks already? Man, I don’t know I survived without your dulcet tones for that long.”

“Nice deflection!” Stan says. “Now tell me what’s going on.”

Richie looks at his shoes, and leans back on the wall. “Not much to tell, to be honest.”

“Richie.”

“Well,” he looks around, scratching at his forehead with the back of his hand. “I got a job at the library. Eddie thinks I’m being weird about it. He thinks it’s stressing me out.”

“Is it stressing you out?” Stan asks, patient. 

“No,” Richie says. “Well, kind of, but it’s not the workload. I barely have to do anything, man. I literally do college work at the desk and judge people for what books they’re taking out.”

“But?”

“But what?”

“But there’s something about the job that Eddie thinks you can’t speak to him about.”

“Yeah,” Richie replies. He turns back towards the library; through the window he makes eye contact with Joey, who taps his watch meaningfully. Richie holds up two fingers.

“Well?” Stan asks. “What is it?”

“Remember…” Richie sighs, and lowers his voice. “Remember last Halloween?”

“Oh,” Stan says, and then repeats with feeling. “ _ Oh.  _ Rich --”

“Yeah,” he says. “It’s kind of --” he pauses. “It’s related to that. I have a co-worker who’s… you know. And he knows about me --”

“Rich --”

“So, I can’t really tell Eddie much about work.”

“You know Eddie won’t care, right?” Stan says. “Like, none of us will care. But, you’ve got to know that  _ Eddie  _ won’t, right?”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Richie says, frowning.

“Nothing!”

“Right,” Richie stubs his cigarette out on the ground. 

“Did you tell this guy, though? That’s big for you, Rich!”

“Ha! No. He guessed.”

There’s a pause. “Well, it’s good that someone there knows, right? Might make you feel less isolated.”

“Yeah,” Richie says. “Good.” He turns back to see Joey glaring at him and tapping his watch again. “Right, well I’ve got to go, man. Sorry for unloading all this onto you.”

“No apologies necessary,” Stan says, voice kind. 

“Now you can get back to whoever’s phone call you were waiting for, you sly dog,” Richie grins, knowing his tone is missing the mark but going for it anyway.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about, Richard Tozier,” Stan grins back, before adding softly “Make sure you don’t leave it two weeks before you call again. You motherfucker.”

“That’s me!” Richie jokes halfheartedly and hangs up. 

He puts the phone back into the receiver calmly and takes a breath. As he turns back to return to the library, he can’t help himself from aiming a swift kick at the wall. 

“Fuck.”

*** 

So, Halloween. 

There were a few things that Richie didn’t like to think about for too long, and this was one of them. 

They had crammed into Mike’s living room, all of them sitting haphazardly across the sofa and on the floor in front of the TV. Its screen cast a warm, flickering light into the dark room. 

They were getting drunk and watching horrors, which had been their running Halloween MO for a couple years. Ben had brought some of his Mom’s wine coolers and Mike had “borrowed” some of his Grandpa’s whiskey. 

Around one am, Richie had stepped outside for a quick smoke. He had been sitting between Ben and Stan, but had been not so subtly staring at Eddie for the past twenty minutes, and had started to feel a little restless. 

Being close to Eddie always made him restless.

It would be coming up to seven years since the first time he had realized that how he felt about Eddie was the kind of wrong that made adults uneasy and made kids spit in your face. Only a few months until he’d be hurtling across the country to somewhere that he could settle into being that kind of wrong and find some kind of solace in it. That’s really what he was feeling that night. The agonising trap of being so close he could feel it between his teeth but still couldn’t quite taste it. 

He had sat on the porch, faced the fields unseeing. 

Sometimes when he was alone he’d just think about Eddie, about how everything he felt towards him, this balled up mess he didn’t know what to do with. There was something about being so young, and experiencing all this white hot intense love, but being unable to articulate it that just made him want to scream. He was seventeen, he was alive, he was in love. But he couldn’t put it anywhere. He couldn’t do anything with it. If he did, he was dead. 

And he’d just sit there and the only thing he could really do was cry, all quiet and without even thinking about it. Real Shakespearean tragedy tears, just rolling down his cheeks, while he let them come. He was at a crossroads. He could either let it out by giving it all to Eddie, or let it out like this, intermittently, and then just go on like he had been. It had worked. It was awful and cruel but it worked.

That was how Stan had found him. 

The door opened behind him, letting a little strip of orange light illuminate the porch steps. Richie tilted his head slightly to the right, enough to let him know it was Stan, but not so much that anyone inside would catch a glimpse of his eyes. 

Stan sat down beside him, turning to look at him. Delaying the inevitable, Richie busied himself by throwing the cigarette stub onto the ground and pushing it into the dirt with his heel. 

He’d been caught in his private ritual, interrupted. He hadn’t flushed out all the love yet. He still felt like he had some he needed to give. He hadn’t had enough time to cry it all out. So, when Stan, bright and kind and not-Eddie, turned towards Richie with a crease between his brows, concern written all over his face, Richie just couldn’t do anything else. 

He leant forward, and there was no question about what he was going to do. 

The kiss was short, chaste and nothing to write home about. Stan gently took Richie by the shoulders and pushed him away. Wiped his tears away. Said:

“Rich. You’re drunk.”

“Not really,” he’d replied, quietly.

“Richie, you didn’t want to do that.”

Richie was looking past his shoulder now. Stan repeated his name.

“No,” he’d agreed, and taken a shaking breath. 

“Richie,” Stan had said, gently. “I’m not Eddie.”

“I know.” The tears came back, faster now. Less quiet. Richie put his head in his hands. “I know,” he repeated. “Fuck.”

“Hey,” Stan pulled him into a hug. “You’ll be okay, Rich. You’ll be out of Derry soon.” 

It didn’t quite stop the tears, but hey. At least he had a witness from then on. 

***


	2. Chapter Two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Writing this chapter like I am going to write a party scene that is so depressing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW: discussions of Richie's internalised homophobia, drinking in a party scene at the end -- characters are holding and sip drinks but no one is especially drunk.

It’s late afternoon, and Richie is in the library, as always. Warm light is spilling its way in through the long windows. The first time Richie had worked a shift that dragged through until the sunset, he had found himself missing home with an urgency that had tugged at his heart.

Spending his days in the library makes him miss Ben and Mike, most of all. It makes him feel close to them. 

“Hey Joey,” Richie says looking up from the homework he has sprawled across the front desk. He bought a pack of highlighters last week because Eddie said he thought Richie would find them useful. Richie’s notes are swimming in neon yellow. “What was your first kiss like?”

Joey looks to the library’s ugly popcorn ceiling and sighs wistfully. “Her name was Claire. She wore blue to the middle school dance, and she tasted like mint chapstick. We were young, it was passionate. I fell in love with her instantly. I’ve been chasing that high ever since.” 

“Your first kiss wasn’t a guy?” Richie can’t help the surprise leaking into his voice. Joey is the loudest and proudest person he’s ever met. It’s hard to believe he wasn’t born that way, pinwheeling out of the maternity ward in rainbows and suspenders.

Joey peers down at him from where he sits, perched on the desk. His resident position. He raises an eyebrow. 

“Yours  _ was _ ?” 

Richie looks down at his work, and tries to look busy. He knows that this is an answer, too. But leaving blanks to fill has always been easier for him than saying anything directly. Besides, Stan was right. It  _ is  _ good that someone knows. This is a good place to start; Joey is the perfect confidant. 

Joey acknowledges the silence, and takes the hint, looking away to make things easier. His gaze flits about the library. 

“Interesting,” he ponders. “You assumed my first kiss was a guy?” 

Richie tilts his head. “Is it homophobic to say yes?”

“You don’t have to be actively homophobic to be a homophobe,” Joey says, rolling his eyes. “Your Star Wars t-shirt is hatecrime enough.”

“Hey,” Richie says, feeling brave. “Luke is like... definitely gay.”

“I wouldn’t know,” Joey responds with a shrug, turning back to him. “I’m too pretty to watch anything that has ‘war’ in the title.”

“You don’t think I’m pretty?”

“I never said that,” Joey narrows his eyes like he’s trying to figure him out. Good luck, thinks Richie. “So your first kiss -- revolutionary? Tick yes or no.”

He hums in response, considering. “Revolutionary might be too strong a word. But… let’s just say it definitely cleared some things up. I emerged from it a new man, as they say.”

“Good for you, kid.” 

Richie bristles at the word, and goes back to his work. It had felt like they were on a roll, he had almost felt like an equal in the conversation. Out of his eyesight, he hears Joey sigh. Richie is aware that he sometimes acts like Joey is a dispenser -- put in a dollar to get homosexual trivia! -- but being patronised, that’s something that Richie will not settle with. 

They sit in silence for a few minutes, the rustling of pages filtering back into Richie’s focus as he flicked through his textbook somewhat aimlessly. 

“My first kiss with a guy was in my first year of college,” Joey says, finally. 

The resigned way he opens the story suggests that it’s once that has been told many, many times. 

His voice is gentle, and Richie can tell that he’s still being a little patronised, but it’s in a way he can understand. He feels like he’s listening to a fable, and then feels stupid for thinking it. He can’t react to every gay experience like it’s a cautionary tale, but sometimes it’s difficult not to. 

As he listens, Richie wonders if he’ll ever have a story like that to tell, if the roles will ever be reversed. He feels so young suddenly, that being a mentor seems impossible.

“I didn’t know his name, still don’t,” Joey continues. “I don’t think he knew mine either though; I was closeted. We both were. It was early days.”

He glances at Richie, as if to gauge his reaction. 

“It was at a frat party,” he continues. “If you can even imagine that. I looked different then. My hair was shorter, I think I was wearing a baseball cap.”

“You looked like a frat boy?” Richie interrupts, “ _ You _ ?” 

“Hey,” Joey grins, “You can’t judge me, Mr George Lucas. Yes, I looked like a frat boy. We all have regrets. I’m lucky enough to witness you making all the wrong choices that will lead to yours, in real-time. It’s like performance art.” 

“Did you wear sunglasses inside?” Richie asks, ignoring the insult.

“You are so disrespectful,” Joey says. “No comment.”

A girl comes up to check out a couple of books then, so Richie has to quickly turn on his customer service persona. Three books on environmental science and an Emily Dickenson collection. Richie’s never been very confident in his gaydar, but he likes to think he’s improving under Joey’s guidance. If  _ they  _ were Star Wars characters, Richie would be Luke and Joey would be Yoda -- a wrinkled gay elder. He smirks inwardly at the thought.

After she’s left, Richie turns to Joey again. 

“I don’t think George Lucas wears his own merch,” he says. 

“Are you kidding,” comes the deadpan response, complete with a raise of the eyebrow. “He  _ definitely  _ would. So.” At this last word, he turns to Richie expectantly.

“So what?” Richie asks. 

“An eye for an eye, Richard.  _ Your  _ average first kiss. Equally as mediocre?”

“Hey!” Richie says, offended. And then, even though it definitely was: “I never said ‘average’. I just said it wasn’t revolutionary. Which, by the way, is a heavy mantle to put on a kiss. But I…” He steels himself. It is good to be known, right? Sometimes it can be. “I kissed my friend when I was drunk.”

“Oh,” Joey says, turning towards him concerned. “Shit.”

“Hey!” Richie says again. He feels like he’s calming a tiger ready to go out mauling. For a brief moment, witnessing this sudden protective energy around Joey, he feels the sense of community that he knows is real in the absent sense, but has never seen before. It’s almost as if it’s something tangible, bouncing invisibly in the air between them like a forcefield. “He was okay about it! He’s cool.” 

He thinks about what Stan said. It’s good to let other people know. So he aims for light, and says, “He could tell I was in love with my best friend, so. He knew it wasn’t for  _ him,  _ not really.”

In  _ love  _ with my best friend, he thinks, as soon as the words leave his mouth. Well. There’s a first time for everything. Admitting you have a problem is the first step, etcetera etcetera. 

“Well,” Joey says, trying to beeline past the problem that’s been presented and towards the silver lining. “At least you’re away from your hometown now, right?”

“Ah. Well, kind of,” Richie allows.

“Kind of?” Joey tilts his head, puzzled. “You’re from Maine, right? We’re literally at the opposite end of the country. I think you’re good.”

“No, I mean,” Richie starts, knowing how he must look to Joey. “Me and my best friend, we moved here together. We’re roommates.”

“Roommates? With the one you were in love with?”

“The one and only!” Richie says brightly. He knows how he looks, and he turns away from Joey slightly as someone comes up to the front desk.

“Past tense?” Joey follows up with, talking through Richie’s interaction with the customer. 

“Huh?” Richie says absentmindedly as he hands the guy his books. Aldous Huxley sits on the top of the pile.  _ Brave New World?  _ Ha. He’s in San Francisco. You’d think, wouldn’t you?

“You’re not still in love with this guy right?” Richie knows what Joey must be thinking. Poor, poor, pathetic Richie. 

“Um, well.” He flounders. “It’s not the kind of thing that just disappears overnight.”

“Oh,” Joey says. “Richie.” 

“Yeah.” Richie says. 

What else can he say? Yes. Yes, I am this pathetic, Joey, but please. Tell me more about how being gay is incredible and awe-inspiring. Tell me how you moved mountains with your new boyfriend last weekend. I am so desperate to hear about all the amazing experiences I have missed out on because I was too busy being repressed and self-pitying.

“I’ll tell you what,” Joey says, ever the good samaritan. “I’m going to a party tonight, and I’m going to extend an invitation to you. My friends will be there -- one of them is the president of the GSA. I think most of her kids are coming. You’re going to meet some out gay guys. Some of them will be your age, and most of them won’t be your boss! How does that sound, huh?”

How does that sound, Joey? It sounds like he would be spending an evening in a room of people who can he relate to in every way, while also being so far removed from their experiences that everything they will speak to him about will sound like Latin. 

Sometimes he wonders why seeking out other gay people feels impossible. He’s starting to think that it’s something about how two gay people will always have some inherent knowledge of each other. He knows that logically, shared experience only goes so far, but sometimes even the fact that people will have even the most basic knowledge of him mapped out before he even mutters a word feels far too intimate. And well, Richie has never really been very good at being known. 

“Hey man,” He starts, already set to de-escalate. “I don’t know about that…”

“Just think about it, okay,” Joey overrules. “You can say no. But in case you change your mind, I’ll text you the details.”

No obligation? Richie can work with that. 

“Okay,” Richie nods. There’s a lump in his throat again. It’s like his body built in a defence mechanism one night but didn’t think to let him know. Does his body know that he’s the boss of it?

“Hey,” Joey says, as if he knows Richie won’t be able to say anything else right now. “It might help. Baby steps, right?”

“Right.”

***

Right. Baby steps. 

Richie gets in from work, and sits heavily at his desk. As he’s stretching in an inhuman manner, attempting to get his spine to crack, Eddie pipes up from behind him. 

“How was your shift?”

“Jesus fucking Christ,” he says, jumping. “You scared the shit out of me.”

“Ha,” Eddie replies, grinning at him “Sorry.”

Richie takes a moment to take him in.

“What are you doing on my bed, dude?” He’s reading a textbook with his notes all sprawled out around him, just like Richie was at the library. Laying on his stomach with his feet in the air, like a girl from a high school romcom. 

“The lighting is better here in the afternoon,” he explains. “You know, with the window.” He gestures at it, the slit in their wall which is letting a soft yellow slice of light fall on Richie’s bed. 

Richie snorts as he leans down to undo his laces. 

“Barely better. Our little bunker,” he says, patting the ground by his shoes fondly. “You didn’t want to go to the library or anything? I’ve heard that the desks even have light at night. I know that might be a little too much for someone who’s so medieval he forgot to turn the light on.”

Eddie tilts his head, confused, and looks past the insult. 

“ _ You _ were at the library,” he says, like Richie’s presented him with a puzzle. 

Interesting, Richie thinks.

“You  _ avoiding  _ me, Eddie?” It’s a joke, but there’s a little thread of uncertainty running through it which means it doesn’t quite hit as well as he’d like.

“I wasn’t sure if you were okay with me coming? It’s sort of your space now... and,” Eddie pauses, frowning. 

“What?”

“You’re still kind of touchy about it, that’s all. I didn’t want to push!”

“I’m not touchy about it!” Richie says immediately. 

Eddie raises his eyebrows.

“Yeah, okay. Sure, Rich.”

Richie can’t help but smile at the nickname. It’s always been hard for him to school his features in front of Eddie, he’s in a constant tie between having his guard up and being constantly disarmed by everything Eddie does. 

  
Eddie notices the smile, and his eyes grow fond. Richie would say unbearably fond. 

“We  _ are  _ okay, right?” 

Richie’s heart pangs. 

“We’re always okay,” he says, instinctively. There’s a pause, and then he says, “I know I’m being weird. I just have…” He gestures vaguely. “Some things to figure out.”

“Yeah?” Eddie says, always earnestly interested in all things Richie. “What kind of things?”

“Oh, you know,” Richie says, shrugging nonchalantly. “The life-changing kind. I’m sort of busy shattering my worldview right now.”

Eddie takes the bait. Thank fuck. 

“Oh shit,” he says. “I knew it.”

“Yeah?” Richie prompts, grinning. 

“Yeah. You’ve watched too many Tony Hawk videos on the computer at work. You’re gonna go pro, aren’t you? Gonna skate off into the Californian sunset?”

“You know me, baby.” He winces slightly when the pet name slips out, but barrels on despite. “I bought Thrasher shares on a whim last Tuesday. They’re gonna throw me out of the company by next month if I can’t ollie on command.”

“Oh fuck,” Eddie grins, resting his cheek in his hand and propping his arm up on his elbow. “Those are some pretty high stakes. Shame I already told Mr Thrasher about when Mike tried to teach you how to skate and you ate shit.”

“You didn’t.”

Eddie angles the hand he’s resting on so it resembles a phone, and fakes a phone call, pinky and thumb sticking out. Richie immediately is filled with a rush of so much love for this idiot that he feels insane. 

“Yeah Mr Thrasher, sir,” Eddie is saying into his hand. “I’m here with him now. Yeah, yeah, I mean it. I’ll email a picture over later to show you. Lankiest fucker alive. No hope for him. Yes, sir. Sorry, sir.”

Richie tilts his head dopily. 

“You got Mr Thrasher on speed dial? I didn’t know you had connections, Eds.”

“Of course I do,” Eddie says. “He was my parents’ best man. And now he’s my…” he flounders, “...business associate.”

“That’s you,” Richie says solemnly. “Famed businessman.”

“The one and only,” Eddie nods. 

“Yeah, the  _ only  _ businessman. You own Wall Street.”

“Someone’s gotta do it,” he shrugs modestly before shooting him a smile. With the way it triggers a heart palpitation, Richie is certain that has the same psychological effect as being actually shot.

He stretches to recuperate and then remembers his plans. He’d decided on the walk home that he would go to the party, after all, only to prove to Joey that he could handle it if nothing else. He’s aware that the reasoning is a little misplaced, but why does anyone do anything? 

For some reason, though, telling Eddie makes him nervous, so he needs to look out the window to breach the subject.

“So I have this… party that Joey invited me to tonight,” he says. “So I need to get going in a bit.”

He glances at Eddie skittishly, under his lashes, without quite turning his head. 

“A  _ party,  _ huh?” Eddie says. He sounds just this side of irked, so Richie shifts to face him head-on.

He’s suddenly interested in his notes, like that was just something that had slipped out of his mouth as a knee-jerk reaction and he’s now pretending he’s not embarrassed. Eddie tends to do that; do something by accident but lean into the mistake instead of retracting it. He’s the most stubborn motherfucker that Richie knows. Like most of Eddie’s traits, he finds it annoyingly endearing.

“Yeah,” Richie says, still ready to backtrack, in case Eddie is actually pissed. “I don’t know. It’s Joey’s friends, you know. Just gotta make the rounds.”

“Right,” Eddie snaps. “ _ Joey’s  _ friends.”

That knocks Richie off balance. 

“Hey,” he says, trying to placate him. “I thought we were cool?”

Eddie looks up at that. He looks apologetic once his eyes meet Richie’s. He wonders what his face gives away. 

“We are cool,” Eddie says reassuringly. And then, guiltily: “Sorry.”

“Okay?” Richie drags the word out. “Did I double book? Were we doing anything tonight?”

“No. Have fun with Joey,” Eddie responds. He seems kind of petulant, but other than that his tone is genuine. “Uh, and his friends.”

Richie regards Eddie, considering. 

“Do you have an issue with Joey, man?” 

There’s something instinctively defensive that rears its head inside him. Eddie doesn’t know Joey’s gay, but there’s a surge in Richie’s chest, a need to defend Joey from scrutiny. 

It makes him a little sick that he still feels that protection in the face of Eddie.

For what it’s worth, Eddie gives pause and seems to take the question seriously. He fiddles with his biro as he thinks.

“I don’t  _ think  _ so,” he says, mulling it over. “No. It’s good that you have more friends that are like you.”

  
Richie feels himself sweat.

“Like… me?”

“Yeah!” Eddie says enthusiastically. “You know, smart! People that can keep up with you!”

“Smart?” Richie furrows his eyebrows, confused but grateful. “You’re smart!”

“You don’t just have to say that,” he says, rolling his eyes. “Idiot.”

“I thought you said I was smart,” Richie quips. He catches sight of the clock on Eddie’s nightstand. “Listen, man. I need to go shower. If I don’t catch you again before I leave, don’t wait up. I don’t know how late I’ll be out.”

“Sure, Rich.” Eddie smiles, turning back to his work. 

The smile catches him off guard, and suddenly overwhelmed with a rush of love, he has a crazy urge to kiss the top of Eddie’s head before he leaves. Really, it’s a miracle that the thought has only just occurred to him, after surviving an entire conversation with Eddie on his bed. Luckily, he catches himself before he actually does, and instead settles for squeezing his shoulder like a madman. 

***

Richie arrives at the party in one piece and on time. 

It’s at Joey’s friend’s house, a femme lesbian named Bianca who shakes Richie’s hand earnestly and tells him he should join them for dinner some time. Apparently, their girlfriend is going to be visiting from culinary school soon, and she’s been planning an elaborate dinner party to throw as soon as she touches down in San Francisco. Bianca’s been collecting old-timey crockery from thrift stores for weeks to give it some grandparent authenticity. 

“I’m always looking for more members for our little family,” they explain, voice loud over the music and their warm cheeks dimpling as they smile. “Are you a vegetarian? Allergic to anything?”

Richie has never wanted to be adopted by a lesbian more in his life than in this moment. 

They write their number down and slip it into Richie’s pocket before he is spotted by Joey, who whisks him away to fix him a drink. 

Once they’re both in the kitchen, Richie takes a moment to reorient himself.

Every cabinet is painted a different shade of green, and despite this being a house full of college students, a mismatched collection of glasses sit on the counter, instead of the usual red solo cups. It reminds him of his kitchen back home, and he finds himself wondering if he should be calling his Mom more. 

“So…” Richie starts, turning to Joey. “Eddie is jealous of you.”

Joey looks at him, lost. He’s wearing a dark green jacket, and Richie’s eyes are dragged towards a pin that is stark against its lapel. PRACTICING HOMOSEXUAL, it reads, in a proud pink that matches Joey’s glasses. There’s a pang in Richie’s chest; he wants what Joey has. Fuck does he want what Joey has. 

“Eddie is…?”

“My roommate,” Richie provides. 

“Right,” Joey replies, with recognition. “Right.”

“He thinks that because you work at a library that you have like, half a foot in the doorway to MENSA,” he continues. “He thinks I’ve made some intelligent friends and I’m going to blow him off to join like… a fucking book club or something.”

“Interesting,” Joey ponders, pushing a drink into Richie’s hand. “That’s good.”

  
Richie stares at him.

“ _Good_? Are you _listening_ to me?”

“No, it is!” Joey says, sincerely. “You can work with that. He’s jealous because he wants dear old you all to himself. That’s a homosexual trait if you ask me.” 

“Well. I’m not asking you.” Richie is uncomfortable with the hope the idea sparks in him, and takes a long drink to hide the reaction he’s sure is playing out on his face. “Anyway,” he says, aiming to distract the conversation, and looks at Joey pointedly. 

“What?” Comes the flat response. 

Richie tries to brace himself without it being obvious. 

“You said you were going to introduce me to some gay guys.”

Joey grins and pats him good-naturedly on the shoulder. 

“Okay,” he says. “Try to look less like you’re going off to war and I’ll point some out.”

***

A few hours into the party, Richie finds himself talking to a clean-shaven Poli Sci major. 

So far, he’s promised Bianca to fill one more seat at their dinner party, got lost on the way to the bathroom twice, and has joined Joey’s ex-boyfriend’s book club. With a wilting copy of  _ Orlando  _ poking its head out of his jacket pocket, he is momentarily comforted by the fact that it will help sell to Eddie that he went to this party to meet more smart people. He feels guilty as soon as the thought passes. 

The Poli Sci major introduces himself as Kevin “Please Call Me Kev” Last Name. He definitely gave one, but Richie can’t remember it. 

He’s wearing slacks, a polo shirt and navy boat shoes. If he had to be described in one word, Richie reckons he would go for a safe ‘tidy’. It doesn’t escape his notice that Kevin is the kind of person who he and Eddie would make fun of together. It’s his gut reaction when Kevin approaches him, a slim glass nestled in his hand, and he wonders absently if that makes him homophobic. 

He decides that anyone who wore boat shoes to a party would be a target for the Richie and Eddie gossip mill, gay or not. Besides, Richie’s not sure if he can actually be homophobic now that he’s gay. 

Wait, no. That’s not quite the right sentiment. Richie has always been gay, it’s not a recent development.  _ I am gay _ , he thinks, cementing it in his mind.

_ Who wears boat shoes to a party anyway,  _ his brain’s resident Eddie pipes up, confirming his theory.  _ Please, point me in the direction of the nearest yacht. You fucking tool.  _

Kevin is telling him all about his family back in Seattle. 

“And my sister just got a dog,” he finishes up, smiling while simultaneously lifting his drink in a strangely rehearsed manner. Richie wonders if it's supposed to be coy. Kevin’s obnoxious class ring catches the light and he loses his vision for a moment. 

“What kind?” He asks. 

“I don’t know,” Kevin pauses. “Some kind of terrier, I think.” 

“Nice,” Richie says, and cringes at himself immediately. God, what is he doing?

“Yeah,” Kevin smiles. “What about you? You got siblings?”

Richie nods. 

“Yeah, a sister. Older.”

“Is she close by?”

“Ah, no,” Richie says before explaining. “She’s at school in New York. I’m from Maine; she wanted to stay closer to home.”

“Right, right.” Kevin shifts slightly, with calibrated ease, so that he’s angled closer to Richie. “Joey mentioned that you’re from Maine. How are you finding the East Coast? Any major culture shocks?”

Richie notices the way the question is delivered, with an undercurrent of flirting, and suddenly his palms are sweaty and he’s braced tightly like he’s waiting for alarms to go off. He laughs nervously. 

“Well,” he stalls. “It’s warmer here.”

“Yeah,” Kevin laughs. “Must be easier to suck dick here, too.” 

Richie is trapped. Richie is trapped in this conversation with Kevin “Boat Shoes” Kev and there is no way out. He takes a drink and thinks,  _ fake it til you make it.  _

“Well,” he laughs back, hoping it reads as natural and not like a cry for help from a caged animal. “Yeah, you’d think.”

“Oh?” Kevin says, interested. “Not much luck on that front?”

“Eh… you know how it is,” Richie says, gesturing vaguely in an attempt to hide the fact that he doesn’t, in fact, know how it is. “I’ve been busy with work and school, etcetera, etcetera.” 

“Aw,” Kevin jokes. Richie is in awe at how easy this seems to be for him. “Poor you.”

Richie shrugs, apathetic under the scrutiny, sipping at his drink and looking away. 

Kevin follows his lead, looking away from Richie before turning back slyly. 

“You know,” he says, “I have to say, Richie. I’m surprised.”

Richie meets his gaze, curious.

“You are?” He asks. “How so?”

“You’re tall,” he begins, after a moment, before continuing to study him. “I like your hair. You’re funny. You have… nice hands.”

Confused, Richie stretches a hand out before him, turning it this way and that. It’s like he’s looking for something that will explain what Kevin means, but there are no answers to be found. 

“Nice… hands?” 

Kevin laughs at Richie’s puzzled face, and puts a hand on Richie’s bicep. All casual. Richie stares at it before his brain catches up with his eyes and he looks away. What is happening? It’s like they’re doing a dance that Richie doesn’t know the steps for. 

“Oh, don’t pretend you don’t know,” Kevin flirts. “You’re just fishing now, aren’t you?”

Richie laughs along with him, but he feels nervous suddenly. He can sense the direction that the conversation is heading in, but he’s not sure if he can meet Kevin in the middle. Just like that, Bianca’s living room feels too small and he needs to step outside. Get some air. 

He pretends to see someone he knows through the window. 

“Oh shit, sorry Kev. I just spotted my buddy.”

He shrugs awkwardly out of Kevin’s grip and makes a break for it. 

***

Then he’s outside, huddled on a sorry-looking garden chair in front of an equally sorry-looking table. There isn’t much of a garden to speak of, but the small patch of grass is comforting. 

Someone’s lit a candle that is sat, burning, in the centre of the table. As he tries to collect himself, Richie stares into the flame. Surprisingly, there isn’t anyone else outside. He was certain he’d seen people smoking out here earlier, but they must have just missed each other. Ships in the night. He’s not sure if he’s glad or disappointed by the solitude. At least no one is here to witness whatever state he’s got himself into this time. 

But then, he hears the back door swing open. The city is suddenly cut with a short blast of the party inside, loud voices and music reverberating into the night. 

“Richie,” he hears Joey say, before he feels a hand land, comforting, on his shoulder. “Are you okay, man?”

He leans back from the table and stands up suddenly. He’s a couple of inches taller than Joey, and, for a reason that he’s reluctant to look into, having that height over him makes Richie feel a little more comfortable.

“Yeah, I’m fine,” he says. “I’m fine. Just needed some air.”

“Did Kev say anything to you?” Joey seems concerned, and Richie feels a little guilty. “I know he can be a bit much sometimes.”

“No, no,” Richie assures him. “He was really nice, we were talking about Seattle.”

“Okay,” Joey says, softly and slightly bemused. “What’s the problem then, bud?”

Richie stuffs his hands in his pockets and kicks absently at the chair. 

“I don’t think…” he takes a deep breath. “I don’t think I’m ready for this.”

“Ready for what?” Joey asks, patient. His calm face is illuminated by the flickering candlelight, and Richie finds himself infuriated. Everyone at this party seems so relaxed, and it makes him feel crazy for still feeling so twisted up inside.

“For any of it!” he exclaims, anxiety spiking suddenly. He feels like a ticking time bomb. “Being here! Talking about… stuff! Coming out! I’m not  _ ready! _ ” 

He pauses, weighed down with a sudden need for honesty. 

“I’m not ready for being gay,” he admits, and the confession hangs in the air between them. 

Joey seems like he’s processing, so Richie turns away from a moment, overwhelmed. 

“I want to say something,” Joey says slowly, “but I don’t think you’re going to like it.”

Richie sighs. Of course he’s not.

“What is it,” he says flatly. 

“If you keep… shying away…” Joey begins, putting out every word slowly, like Richie is an animal he’s trying not to spook, “you’re never going to feel ready for being gay.”

“Gee, thanks, Joey.” He can’t help but snap. “You think I don't  _ know  _ that? Thanks for the new fucking information!”

Joey blows a sharp breath through his teeth, frustrated. 

“I’m just saying!” he says. “Please, tell me if there’s something I can do to make it easier! I’m trying to help you!” 

“Well, maybe I’m beyond help!” He’s not quite yelling, but he’s close. “Maybe this is just what it’s going to be for me!”

Something in Joey’s expression falls, shutters shut. It only makes him angrier.

“Richie…”

“I mean it! I grew up in a fucking nightmare town! And I left. But guess what, Joey?” He feels like he’s on a roll now. He can’t let up. “It fucking followed me! I’m out of there but I can never  _ really  _ fucking leave. Because maybe I don’t  _ get  _ that. Maybe I don't  _ get this! _ ” 

He gestures jerkily to the party going on inside, warm lights and music muffled from bleeding into the cold city outside. 

“And you!” He continues, voice edging into cruelty, “You think you understand me on some  _ molecular  _ level, but you’re a  _ San Francisco native,  _ dude! You don’t  _ get  _ it!”

Joey’s face changes, and he snaps back. 

“Oh, so you think I’ve never been called a  _ fucking homo  _ before? Is that it?”

“Hey,” Richie backtracks, “I  _ never  _ said that!”

“Yeah, but you  _ meant  _ it!” Joey rubs a hand down his face. “I am trying to help you! I’m trying to help you because I’ve been where you are! And it’s shit! It’s fucking  _ lonely  _ dude!”

“You think I don’t  _ know that _ !?” Richie shouts back, his voice cracking. The lump in his throat is back, and so are the tears. Both seem to appear whenever he thinks about this, something cruel and Pavlovian. “You think I don’t  _ fucking know that _ !?”

“Please, Richie,” Joey says, voice tight and small, like watching Richie is hurting him. “Let me help you.”

“I don’t  _ need  _ help,” Richie says, wiping his tears with the back of his hand angrily. “And you can’t force it on me just because you think you have me all figured out.” 

He tugs at his jacket, trying to make himself look more presentable. He knows he should be embarrassed, but all he can focus on right now is the thought of his bed, and a room with Eddie in it. 

“I think I should head home,” he says, finally.

Joey sighs, defeated. 

“At least let me walk you. I’ll worry about you all night if you don’t.”

Richie tugs at his jacket again, trying to make himself seem taller. He’s torn between his pride and the comfort he feels at the idea of being worried about. It’s a selfish comfort to harbor. He feels guilty as soon as he thinks it. 

He looks at the ground. 

“Yeah, okay,” he says, eventually. “Let me just go say bye to Bianca.”

***

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i hope u enjoyed!! lots of joey content here!!! do not worry though guys eddie will be in it more next chapter :) as ever, kudos and comments are loved and appreciated. im luckycharmr on tumblr :)


	3. Chapter Three

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> cw: brief mention of suicide but in a "social suicide" kind of a way. implication of underage drinking (characters who are 18/19, so underage in the USA).
> 
> I'm back baby! After three months lol. This one has way more Eddie content than we've seen so far! Hope you guys enjoy him <3
> 
> (also yes i changed my user name! i'm now comosum which is the latin name for a spider plant lol)

On a quiet morning shift, Richie spies Eddie.

He’s tucked away behind the stacks, hidden from Richie at such an angle that he really has to twist his neck to notice him. Of course, Richie still notices him. So far he’s caught a twist in the back of his neck, and the cuffed cut of his jeans skirting an ankle which peaked out twenty minutes ago behind a book cart. Only small glimpses, but it’s Eddie. Richie would know any part of him anywhere. 

It  _ has  _ been a quiet shift, which is business as usual for work at a library, he knows. After his outburst at the party, Joey has left him to his own devices a little. Nothing too dire, he doesn’t feel out of his depth at all, but with the absence of chatter coming from Joey’s resident perch on the desk, he’s realized that there was certainly more help being pushed towards him than he needed. 

So, it’s been a gentle few hours. Joey is on the second floor, he thinks, restocking shelves. Maybe on his break. He usually goes out to the coffee shop on campus, and comes back with a tall cardboard cup. Richie has been trying to work out his coffee order so that he has the opportunity to buy him an apology drink as repayment for the other night, but because Joey’s been giving him space, he hasn’t had the chance to do recon. 

Richie is on the desk again of course, likely due to the fact he’s barely picked up the dewey decimal system and the big bosses don’t seem to trust him to find any book’s rightful place. Some part of him expected that he would have picked it up by osmosis by now, but there’s only so far passive enthusiasm can get you. It’s always been weirdly pleasing when something doesn’t come naturally to him. He’ll have to actively work on remembering it all, and the effort will help him feel like he’s improving.

In between the calculus he’s been absently working at, he’s been reading  _ Orlando.  _ Richie, who’s never really felt like he knows enough to comment on literature, has slowly been forming the conclusion that it is the perfect book to read in the library. With all the strangers’ faces bleeding into each other, and the perfect way the light ebbs and troughs through the day, it matches the mood seamlessly. He wants to call Stan about it. He should probably call him soon anyway, to talk to someone who would be able to listen to him about the disaster of the party.

Of course, he has tried to talk to Eddie. Eddie is still his first port of call for almost everything. It seems impossible that that could change. 

It’s just been difficult lately. It’s hard to explain. It’s as if he never thought he’d be able to have a life where being gay is a part of it. Growing up in Derry, it’s as if he had to keep that part of him separate. To have it as part of his integral identity would have been suicide. To say anything regarding it, louder than a whisper, would have been suicide. Being in this new environment where being gay is a given, tied up in his new friendships and interactions, means that it’s been difficult to filter them for Eddie. 

Even thinking it makes him feel shady. It’s exactly what Eddie wouldn’t want; being kept out of the loop, Richie curating the anecdotes he feeds him as if he wouldn’t be able to stomach anything else. 

The only thing that makes him feel marginally better is the fact that he knows his own motivations for the separations. Even if Eddie was fine with him being gay (which he knows he would be, really), Richie knows that he’s just not ready for it yet. And that’s okay! He’s been learning more about who he is, taking it slow, easing into this new reality. The party may have been a complete disaster, and his friendship with Joey felt a little more feeble and parental than he would like, but he at least took away the wisdom that was being imparted on him. Everyone has different journeys, take your time, etcetera etcetera. He’s just taking his time. Paddling in the shallows of the metaphorical gay river of life. 

In the library, a content twenty minutes pass by, Richie only occupied with the absent goal of catching Eddie’s attention. Then, the perfect opportunity is delivered to Richie on an Eddie-shaped silver plate. In his periphery, because he has angled himself to have a perfect outline of Eddie just out of his blindspot, Richie notices him get up and stretch, heading towards another section of the library. For a moment, he wonders what shelf he’s making his journey to, but then he remembers it’s Eddie. He can just ask him. 

“Psssst!” He hisses, trying to call him over discreetly. “Eddie!”

No dice. He hisses Eddie’s name again, a little louder this time. Finally, he turns, eyes slipping easily to meet Richie’s. His eyebrows bunch up when he recognizes that A) it is Richie, and B) Richie is one psst away from causing a scene.

“Shhh,” he chides, heading over to the desk. And then, acting like Richie is the newcomer: “Oh my god, dude. This is a  _ library _ .”

“Really?” Richie makes a show of looking around the high ceiling. “I hadn't noticed.”

Eddie grins, all natural, rolling his eyes. The reaction is instantaneous, like a jerk of the knee. These are the responses that Richie aims for, and he pockets the resulting joy like treasure. It can funnel into a sort of feedback loop sometimes, Richie making dumb quips just to get a quick retort and Eddie doing the same. He clamps down the desire to continue the bit, and tries to catch Eddie’s attention again.

“Hey,” he says. “What are you doing here? Working?”

“Yeah. The floor above us was playing music super loud,” Eddie says, clearly trying to hide his irritation. “I think they’re theater majors.”

“You can be annoyed,” Richie replies, laughing. “I’m not going to get mad at you for disrespecting the arts or whatever.”

“Well,” Eddie replies, smiling slightly. “You hardly have a leg to stand on anyway. Anyone who sees the way you dress would be able to tell you don’t care about the arts.”

“Touché, Eds,” he says, not even trying to hide his delight. 

Behind Eddie, his eyes land on someone making their way up through the stacks towards the desk. It’s Joey, clad in green overalls and carrying a slim package under his arm. Eddie notices his eyes straying and turns his head to work out what he’s looking at. 

With his eyes facing away, Richie allows himself to catalogue the back of his neck and how the muscle strains with his movements. These minute looks don’t hurt. Richie looks in short two-second-bursts, just in case they do. He’s used to rationing himself on what he wants. Sometimes he wonders if he’ll ever be able to break the habit, even if one day he’s allowed to. 

“Holy shit,” Eddie says, when he realises that Joey is walking straight up to the desk, and therefore must know Richie. “Is that the new TrackTalk issue?”

Joey slaps the magazine down on the desk and turns to Eddie surprised. He must have wanted to stash it in the drawer under the front desk until the end of his shift. It’s his favorite hiding place in the whole library. The other day Richie had found two dozen half-eaten poptarts and had considered throwing the whole desk away.

“Yeah, dude,” Joey says to Eddie, before grinning slyly at Richie. “I snuck out and picked it up on my break.”

No coffee cup in sight. He’ll have to wait again to work out his order. 

Eddie peers at the front cover. Richie angles his head to take a look at it too, trying to see it through Eddie’s eyes. A man stands in racing overalls, white and blue and scuffed. He has dirty blond hair and an inviting white smile. If pressed, Richie would describe him as all-American. Behind him is a gleaming car, parked in a way that makes it look like it’s posing too. At the top there’s thick red letters, reading TRACKTALK. The font is masculine and streamline. Richie wonders why Joey is interested in the magazine, and if it’s for the same reasons that Eddie is. 

“Oh my god, did they actually interview Chase Edgerton, or was that just rumors?”

“They did!” Joey exclaims, visibly lighting up. “Oh my god! I love to hate that stupid motherfucker!”

Richie looks between them. Of all the outcomes of these two parts of his life meeting, this is far from what he expected. 

“Right?!” Eddie continues, “It’s ridiculous how many sponsors he gets, he crashes out of like, every race he drives. I don’t understand how they’re always surprised when it happens again,” he rolls his eyes like he’s letting Joey in on a joke. “You’d think they’d have learned by now.”

“Literally! The man can’t steer!”

Richie gapes at them both. 

“What the fuck is happening right now?” 

Eddie moves a little closer to Joey, perhaps subconsciously, adopting a stance that others Richie. Eddie likes Joey, and Richie is thrilled by it. 

“What’s happened is that I’ve just found someone to finally talk to about racing,” he says.

“How can you  _ both  _ be into weird little angry cars?” Richie knows what the weird little angry cars are called but pretending that he doesn’t is one of life’s great joys. “It remains the weirdest hobby I’ve ever encountered, and Bev took up paper maché one summer.”

Eddie turns to him, smug. Richie knows the trap that he’s fallen into, but he doesn’t mind. He set it up on purpose. 

“And guess what she made me?”

“A miniature Fastrak late model,” Richie responds dutifully.

Across from him, Joey raises an eyebrow like he’s trying to figure the two of them out. There’s a slight quirk of his mouth, and Richie can tell that he’s about to crack out his Shakespeare impression. Joey saves it for special occasions, or just when he feels the need to say ‘thou’. 

“Oh, a romantic gesture? The lady doth give the young man a cardboard car?”

“No,” Eddie laughs good-naturedly. “Bev’s basically my sister.”

“And the cardboard car was shit,” Richie is happy to interject.“Y’know, as diy romantic gestures go. It was no Michelangelo. It was hardly Rodin’s  _ The Kiss _ .”

Joey and Eddie turn towards him, eerily in sync. Dual blank faces peer out at him. 

“Dante?” Richie offers. “The Divine Comedy? No?”

Eddie rolls his eyes. 

“How you find it in yourself to make fun of my interests when you come out with shit like that is beyond me. And anyway,” He reaches across the desk at an awkward angle to slap at his chest. Joey gives him an inscrutable look over Eddie’s head. Richie wants to kill him. “It was  _ not  _ shit. It was completely structurally sound. You know that it was your fault that it fell apart. You sprayed it when we were having a water fight and then we all discovered cardboard melts.”

As Eddie pulls back to the position he was in previously, Richie can see clearly towards Joey, and his face has relaxed into a smile . He seems happy for him in a paternalistic kind of way that makes Richie vaguely suspicious, already knowing the inevitable cogs that are turning in his head. 

Predictably, Joey clears his throat and opens his mouth. 

“Hey, Eddie,” he begins. “Did Richie tell you about Bianca’s dinner party?”

Eddie’s face is also host to a small smile, one of Richie’s favorites. It’s soft and easy.

“No,” he says, his voice lilting up into a question, gaze flitting between the two of them. “I don’t think so?”

“Oh, I thought it was a small thing,” Richie pipes up, shifting his gaze away from Eddie to meet Joey’s eyes. It hadn’t seemed like a big event when he’d been asked, and he had felt a little like an add-on anyway. “Am I allowed to bring people?”

“The more the merrier!” Joey says, excited. “Plus, I think Bianca would love you, Eddie. Their girlfriend is at culinary school. They’re extremely drawn to people who act like they’re driven by a small furnace that lives inside them. Especially people with niche interests. You know, like a weird little fun thing.”

Richie doesn’t miss how Eddie’s gaze shifts minutely to him for reassurance, in case this is an insult. 

“I’ve been thinking about starting meditation,” he says finally, slightly bemused.

“Somehow,” Richie mutters fondly to him, “I think that would make you more intolerable.” He turns to Joey. “We’ll both be there, how about that?”

“That would be perfect,” he responds, looking down at his watch. “Duty calls. See you later, young Padawan.”

He turns and walks away. Richie scowls as they watch him go. He knew he wasn’t pretty enough to not have seen Star Wars. 

Once Joey is out of earshot, Eddie turns and grins at Richie. 

“Hey,” he says, “I like that guy.”

Richie smiles. 

“I’m glad. I hoped you would but…” He trails off, shrugging. 

“There was a reason you didn’t introduce us sooner?”

“Not exactly,” he says, because it is complicated, just maybe not for the reasons that Eddie suspects. “He can be a lot sometimes. I wasn’t sure if you’d be able to hit it off. And I wanted you to like him.”

“ _ I  _ can be a lot,” Eddie reasons. “And so can you. And you can have friends that I don’t get on with, you know. There’s no rules about it. Some people just don’t mesh well.”

“I know,” Richie says, honestly. “But you’re important. I trust your judgement. It always feels a little more…” he searches for the right word, “ _ monumental _ , with you.”

“Yeah,” Eddie replies, tilting his head consideringly, like it helps him take everything in. Richie, always grateful for the certainty of Eddie Kaspbrak, knows that he is understood completely. “I get it.”

\--

A couple days later, Richie tiptoes quietly into their dorm room after a late shift, only to find Eddie sitting at his desk, homework abandoned, with his phone squeezed between his cheek and his shoulder. The position feels undeniably domestic, and Richie feels his heart jolt at the first sight of it. He talks the organ down, quietly, internally, like it’s a startled rabbit that he wants to calm. 

Eddie’s whispering, mostly, mindful of the thin walls that he always complains about, but every now and again the person on the other end of the line says something that makes a laugh explode out of him like a rocket. 

Richie, ever the sleuth, knows that he’s on the phone to Bev. 

When he knows that he doesn’t have to be quiet, he drops his bag heavily to the floor before face planting on his bed and groaning.

Eddie laughs at something Bev says, and spins in his chair so he’s facing Richie.

“No,” he says, responding to a question on the other end of the phone. He rolls the chair towards the bed so that he can kick gently at Richie’s leg. “It’s just Rich. He just got back from a shift.”

Richie turns over blearily and pulls himself up so that he’s on his back and leaning on his elbows, facing Eddie. 

“Hi Bev,” he says, raising his voice so that he can be heard. Eddie pulls the phone away from his ear and sets it on the bed, clicking it to speakerphone. “How’s The Big Apple?”

“ _ Ah, you know, _ ” her tinny voice replies. “ _ Busy. I have a paper due in a couple days so I’ve just been in the library, my roommate’s a theater major so I went to her show the day before yesterday, and I’ve started taking night classes for life drawing. _ ”

“You love it,” Richie summarises.

“ _ Of course, you know me,” _ she says, and Richie knows he does. “ _ I like to have things to do. _ ”

“I bet you do,” Eddie says, slyly, startling a laugh out of Richie. The indignant reaction it sparks out of Bev makes it clear that he’s referencing something they were talking about earlier, which makes Richie wonder, not for the first time, what they talk about when no one else is there. There’s a small part of him that hopes they talk about him, the way he talks about Eddie with Stan. 

Once the commotion dies down, it’s Bev’s turn to be sly.

“ _ Oh _ ,” she says. “ _ Richie! _ ”

“Present.”

_ “Maybe you can provide some insight _ ,” she says. “ _ Eddie was agonising over what to wear to this dinner party you two are going to. I suggested that one shirt, you know _ .” She clicks her fingers, trying to remember. The quirk is audible over the phone. “ _ The red one. The button down he wore to graduation. _ ”

Eddie glares at the phone and scratches at his collar, self-consciously. Richie can see the beginnings of a blush rising up his neck. He lets himself watch for a second before quickly looking at the phone along with Eddie. 

“Yeah, but I  _ said  _ I don’t think it’s like a fancy dinner party,” Eddie turns suddenly, looking at Richie for help. “Like, wouldn’t that mean I’d be overdressed?”

Richie, who thinks that sitting at a dinner party with all of his gay friends, next to Eddie in the red shirt that had bulked up a lot of his late night rants to Stan near the end of senior year, would be possibly both the worst and best experience of his life. 

“ _ Yeah, Richie _ ,” Bev says. “ _ What do you think? _ ”

“Well,” he says, stalling for time. “I think that you shouldn’t worry about overdressing. Joey’s friends are all a bit, I don’t know. Out there. So you definitely wouldn’t be the only one dressed up. Not that the shirt would constitute as _dressed up._ You know what I mean.”

“ _ So? _ ” Bev asks. “ _ Thoughts on the shirt? _ ”

“It’s…” Richie looks at Eddie, who is looking right back at him. “It’s a good shirt.”

“ _ Think he should wear it _ ?” Bev prompts again.

“Yeah,” Richie says. “It’s a good shirt. You looked… good. At graduation. You should wear the shirt.”

“ _ Told you Eddie, _ ” Bev says smugly. “ _ You need to put more trust in me. I know what looks good on you. I know the audience _ .”

“The audience?” Richie asks, lost.

“ _ Yeah _ ,” Bev says. “ _ You _ .”

Eddie redirects the conversation pretty swiftly after that, turning them towards studies and bitching about Derry. Familiar conversations, words and sentiments that they’ve all exchanged hundreds of times. It always feels new and interesting to discuss these things with Eddie and Bev, though. A testament to the comfort, the normalcy they provide.

When they finally hang up, it’s getting late in San Francisco, and later in New York. Bev didn’t seem to mind though. Richie can’t blame her, he would speak to any of the losers at any time of day, no questions asked. Maybe that’s just them. Richie wouldn’t be surprised if they discovered red strings of fate linking the seven of them, pulled taught over state lines and cross-country.

Once alone, Eddie and Richie lay quietly in their beds in the black. They’ve both had long days; Richie’s exhaustion from his shift is starting to set in deep in his bones. He’s halfway to sleep when Eddie’s voice pulls him out of the dark.

“Sorry about,” he starts and then stops. The room is quiet, Richie can hear Eddie breathing. It comes quick and shallow like a spooked animal. He wonders if his is as audible too, heavy in his chest.

“About what?” Richie asks. He racks his brains, trying to work out what Eddie could be wanting to apologise for.

“For Bev pushing for an answer about the shirt,” he rushes out. “I know you don’t have strong opinions about my wardrobe. Sorry you were put on the spot.”

“You don’t have to apologise for that,” Richie begins. He pauses for a while, to think about what he wants to say. What he really wants to say is that Eddie shouldn’t have to worry about putting on the spot for anything, that he’ll always have an answer for him, that he’s a well that is overflowing with things he wants to share with Eddie. 

He wants to explain that he  _ does  _ have opinions on Eddie’s wardrobe, very strong ones in fact, that he’s been cultivating for years now. He has favorite shirts of Eddie’s, a soft spot for the ties he wears at job interviews, a fondness for a certain cut of jeans that he started wearing in the last few years of high school. He wants to explain this with the sincerity that he feels it deserves, wants Eddie to hear the genuine interest in his voice, wants to be able to explain without the worry that Eddie will read into the words in front of him and finally, fully, understand what Richie feels. 

Richie wants a lot of things. Unfortunately, Richie has a tried and tested understanding of consequences. He knows the realm that he has allowed himself to occupy very well, and he is still not ready to explore beyond its walls. 

“You know I like that shirt,” he lets himself say, finally. He’s not sure if Eddie will hear how much he means it, so it feels safe to say. Especially if he buffers it with more sincerity, disguised as a joke. “I’ll have you know that I have very important feelings about your clothes. Expect a ranked list on your desk in the morning.”

“But Mr Tozier,” Eddie says, mercifully taking the bait. “I wanted that list last week.”

Richie laughs tiredly, the sound muffled slightly by the pillow he’s laying on.

“Ah,” he jokes. “Good things come to those who wait.”

They soon settle into silence, and Richie is lulled to sleep by the sound of Eddie breathing, even and familiar. Just as he sinks into unconsciousness, he imagines a red string of fate looped quietly between their beds, tying them together securely. 

\--

“Rich,” Eddie says flatly, sitting on his bed, buttoning and unbuttoning the cuffs of his shirt. “I’m not sure if you knew this already, but it’s a little known fact that you have to get dressed in order to go places. If you want, I’ll teach you about other customs of the world. But only if you just hurry the fuck up so we can make it to Bianca’s on time.”

Richie turns to Eddie, all dressed up and looking like a ridiculously attractive fifties movie star, and briefly meets God. It’s Bianca’s dinner party tonight, and Eddie must have listened to Bev’s advice, because he’s spent the afternoon lounging around their dorm room dressed to the nines. 

He really does look like an old Hollywood type, a James Dean or a Marlon Brando, his shirt a deep wine red and his hair tousled loosely, slightly in need of a haircut. 

Back in Derry, Eddie would never miss his monthly scheduled barbers appointment, and the curled hair at the base of his neck seems to be one of Eddie’s small and measured rebellions. It looks great, but in an effortless way that means Eddie doesn’t realise how fucking attractive he is growing to be each day. His journey to becoming more and more casually and classically handsome has not been doing wonders for Richie’s blood pressure. Every morning he comes in from his shower and every morning Richie swears he looks better than the last. 

Richie, for his part, has been avoiding planning his outfit. Somehow he feels too shy to pick out a set of clothes next to Eddie’s carefully calculated black cigarette jeans, his shirt and his battered watch. He’d uncharacteristically taken the latter off so that he could clean its face with a tissue, before fitting it back snugly around his wrist. Richie had been eyeing the pretty jut of wrist all morning before he put it on. The thrill of seeing a part of Eddie that was usually covered up was a lot to deal with, the novel skin taunting him from across the room, even if it was just his wrist. 

He would probably tell someone all of this later, if they were going to be drinking, and Richie hoped it wouldn’t be Joey. Hopefully Stan would be okay with a late night chat. 

“Calm down,” he says, finally. “We’re not going to be late for the ball. I’ll just pick something out.”

He goes to his closet and stands there, staring at his clothes too long to be necessary. What is it about this that feels so acutely embarrassing? Probably just the fact that there’s a little part of him, deep down, that wants to dress to match Eddie. Just a little bit, just a small thing, just a t-shirt to wear under an undone button up that is red to match his shirt. Something to indicate that they’re a matching pair. That they come together. 

He stands there for a long moment, hands braced on either door of the closet, staring into the mess of his clothes inside. 

“What the fuck is happening,” Eddie says, finally. “Have you fallen asleep standing up? Is this your way of telling me you’re a horse girl?”

“Horse girls aren’t genetically similar to horses, Eddie. Horse girls don’t operate on the same level as Spider-Man.”

“Well, they fucking should. Then they could at least contribute something interesting to society instead of just being dead weights in my Environmental Science group projects.”

Richie turns his head towards Eddie, his hands still settled on the doors. Eddie is leaning back on his elbows now, the classic movie star image complete. Richie half wants to conjure a Bourbon for him, switch the room into black and white, bring out the cameras and start filming a cologne ad. At least Eddie hasn’t started wearing cologne. That would probably finish him off. 

“Are you okay,” Eddie asks. He doesn’t sound too concerned, but that’s okay. They can read each other well enough now to understand what constitutes the difference between a minor panic and an actual tragedy. “Richie,” he prompts again. “Are you dying.”

“I don’t know what to wear,” he says finally, admitting defeat. He turns back to his clothes. “What says ‘I care about this dinner party and want to make a good impression’? What says ‘I may not be Brad Pitt but in the right lighting I can clean up nice’?” 

“What the fuck,” Eddie mutters under his breath, getting up from the bed. He rolls his eyes so violently Richie wonders if he’ll trigger his vertigo. “What are you talking about you dumb fucking fuck. You are literally handsome,” he methodically flips through Richie’s clothes at the speed of one of his beloved motorists, and Richie watches him do it like he’s the latest big hit at the Aladdin. Eventually, he pulls out a soft navy blue sweater that Richie had half-forgotten he owned, some dark jeans and even a fresh pair of socks. “Wear your black jacket with these. And your nice Converse. Dickhead. I can’t believe you think Brad Pitt is better looking than you.” 

Richie holds the clothes Eddie pressed into his hands against his chest in shock. 

“Brad Pitt?” He says, dumbfounded. “Of  _ course  _ Brad Pitt is more handsome than me. He’s  _ Brad Pitt? _ ” 

“Brad Pitt has a boring face,” Eddie says, nonplussed. Or, at least, Richie would believe he was, if he hadn’t caught the rapid movement of Eddie pulling at his collar. Interesting, Richie thinks, and then decides immediately not to think anything ever again.

“I would love a boring face if it meant I could look like Brad Pitt.”

  
“Stop talking about Brad Pitt,” Eddie says flatly. “Get dressed or we’ll be late.”

“You think _ Brad Pitt _ is ugly,” Richie says, pulling the jumper over his head. “It would be crazy if we didn’t dissect that.”

“I don’t think he’s ugly,” Eddie says, crossing his arms and looking away pointedly as Richie tugs his sweatpants off to swap for the jeans. His arms look very nice under the red shirt, Richie notices as he looks out of the corner of his eye. He immediately wishes he hadn’t. “I just think he’s  _ boring.  _ And I don’t want to be dissected.”

“Okay, Eds.” Richie mimes crossing off a list. “I’ll make the adjustments in my schedule.”

“Make them faster,” Eddie says. “I have to pick something up on the way there.”

“Who else do you think is boring?” Richie grabs his shoes from where they are laying under his bed. He left them tightly double-knotted so he begins the task of pulling them apart. “Just so that I get a glimpse into your psyche. This isn’t dissection by the way, it’s more of a character analysis.”

“Bill,” Eddie says, game as always. “JFK. The guy from Monopoly with the top hat.”

“Mr Monopoly?” Richie stares at him. “You are putting Mr. Monopoly next to JFK?”

“You asked!”

“Are these just men you think are boringly handsome? You think Mr. Monopoly is handsome? And don’t think I’ve forgotten you said Bill. You were very quick to throw him under the bus.”

“I didn’t say handsome! I said boring!”

“Could you walk me through the difference between boring and handsome, in your opinion? This is a real question.”

“Boring people have like, perfect face symmetry and freakishly clear skin and they always dress like they’re going to the races or some shit.”

“That’s what handsome people look like,” Richie says. “Like, you’re just describing beautiful rich people.”

“Beautiful rich people look boring though. That’s different from being handsome. Beautiful rich people look beautiful  _ because  _ they’re rich.”

“You’ve said Beautiful Rich so much I think I’m developing a complex,” Richie jokes. “I understand where you’re coming from, but I still think you’re insane for devaluing Brad Pitt like that.”

“He’s Brad Pitt,” Eddie says. “I’m sure he’ll survive.”

“We’re going to get a call that says Brad Pitt just collapsed and nobody knows why. The power of an Eddie Spaghetti roast is no match for any man, not even beautiful, rich, handsome Brad Pitt.”

“Are you the first one they’d call on that occasion?”

“Oh absolutely,” Richie angles a pair of thumbs up towards his chest. “I told you I’ve been working for the library but it’s actually a rouse. Me and Joey are agents to the stars. We’re going to tell everyone tonight. I’m giving you the top-secret low down in advance because I like you, kid, so make sure to act surprised when we make the big reveal.”

“Oh my god,” Eddie says, grinning slightly despite himself. “I’m gonna kill you.”

“Well,” Richie says, gesturing to his laced up shoes, ready to go. “You’ll have to chase me to do it, because I’m good to go, Eddie baby!”

“Fucking finally,” Eddie says. “Now get out the door.”

Richie lets himself be shepherded through the door, and something in him thrills.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> wooo!! this feels like it's a little short but i hope everyone enjoyed! let me know what you think :) comments and kudos are appreciated. the dinner party next! very excited for more Bianca content I love them.

**Author's Note:**

> hope u enjoyed! kudos and comments r always appreciated!! let me know if u want more!! love to tendercord for letting me clog the writing channel :)


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